The Courier
by Moontan
Summary: Aileen had always wanted to go to England, but after she graduates from school, that want grows to a pressing desire she can't ignore. But even she doesn't know the reason for this, though she suspects it has something to do with her dreams lately. Elements of anime/Ultimate present.(Reviews and Criticisms are welcome and encouraged.)
1. The Calling

_(_**Disclaimer**: Hellsing is, quite obviously, not mine. All places and people from Hellsing belong to its creator. This is merely one person's interpretation of them with an OC added into the mix.

**A/N**: Don't worry, the characters from that universe will show up. The writer just has to take things at her own pace. Also, the title isn't final; it's a working title. The writer had to call it something, after all. Feel free to review if you are so moved._)_

_I dreamed of the graves again. There's always a pair of them, well worn with age and barely legible. Both are covered seamlessly with grass, even to the point that little patches of wildflowers had grown on them. I can smell the dirt, and beneath it I can somehow see and smell the bones, stripped of their flesh centuries ago. Then one set of bones disappears and there is a sense of loss and longing. I wish I knew what it meant._

Aileen sighed as she looked at her reflection in the glass. It looked as faded as she felt while she leaned against the bus window. She was on an intercity route from her small town to a bigger city. Soon she would be boarding a plane to England.

Aileen had wanted to go to Europe since she was little. There was a charm to the old world that didn't seem to exist in North America. Still, it had been a rather dim desire for the most part, just something that came up when asked what she would do if she had a lot of money to spend. Travel was just one of those answers people gave. And the British Isles wouldn't be too hot. Or too dangerous, so she thought.

But then recently that desire had flared up into something that was hard to escape. It just seemed to pop into her mind the moment she wasn't focused on her day to day tasks. School was over for good; she had graduated and, in theory, should be planning the rest of her life. Somehow she couldn't focus on any idea other than getting to England. Yet, she had no clue what she would do when she got there.

Under the advice of a psychologist, she finally bought a ticket and just decided to go. Whatever scrambled her neurological pathways wouldn't be resolved until she just met the desire face on and confronted it. She had a theory that they were somehow connected with the dreams of the graves, but she couldn't think why. Maybe she would find them in England; the graves seemed old enough to find in a cemetery there. Yet, they were always alone.

Eventually the bus stopped. Aileen got out, collected her luggage and proceeded into the airport. Her hands clutched her ticket nervously; she had never left the country before. If she didn't feel so pressed into doing this, she likely wouldn't have gotten up the courage to go...especially alone.

Somehow she managed to get herself onto the plane and into her seat without too much trouble. The fact that she didn't have an attack of nerves helped. Again she found herself against a window; though this time she would be going up instead of simply over. As she looked at her reflection, she felt like she was looking at a stranger. Surely it must just be a trick of the light. Her eyes simply were not that dark, neither was her hair. Blinking a few times, the anomalies faded away.

Aileen slept for most of the journey. Again she saw the graves, but this time her point of view zoomed outwards. The countryside she saw didn't seem familiar. She had seen images of England before, but the mountains she saw in the distance didn't seem to fit with what she knew of English geography. Perhaps she had been wrong. Maybe the dreams had nothing to do with her desire to visit England. But, if not, why was her mind so torn between these two ideas?

When the plane landed in London, and she disembarked, her mind was too full with the noise and bustle of the airport to really worry too much about graves and mountains. After collecting her luggage again, she caught a taxi to the hotel she had pre booked. She wasn't well off, so it was a small and unobtrusive place. However, it was a clean place to sleep, and that was all that she required.

The next day she busied herself with looking up local graveyards. It seemed as good a place as any to start looking. She wasn't sure what she had expected once she got to England, but if she had expected answers right away, she would have been disappointed. The only thing different is that she felt like she was supposed to be there. But it was not a feeling of comfort; rather it seemed as though she was waiting for a purpose.

Using the internet as a source of information, she compiled a list of possible cemeteries in the London area. By the condition of the graves in her dreams, she assumed it must be in a fairly old graveyard. The oldest on her list was a place called Bunhill Fields, which had been in use between the late seventh century and the mid nineteenth century. While she found a couple of names that she remembered from her education, most notably the author of the often quoted poem, 'The Tyger', she didn't see anything that resembled the graves she was looking for.

The whole first day of touring graveyards turned up nothing. Graves were plenty, and old graves were not in short supply. However, none of them quite matched the image she had seen in her dreams. She was certain that if she found them she would know it right away. Still, she wasn't quite discouraged; not yet, though sometimes she doubted her own sanity. Eventually she ran out of graveyards in London. Frustrated, she returned to her hotel room and finally fell asleep.


	2. The Somnambulist

_It's the graves again. What do they mean? Some people say that dreaming of a grave is dreaming of your own death. But why would I need to see two of them? I'm only one person. And why are the words so faded?_

"Further back," whispered a voice in the dream.

_I stepped back and looked again. It's just two graves; nothing else. That's it! This can't be a graveyard in a city; there's nothing else near these graves. There isn't even a fence around them. Are they in the countryside? How will I ever find them?_

"The citizens are not only believed to be criminals, but being referred to as vampires," explained a woman's voice on television. Aileen came out of the bathroom, attempting to ruffle dry her hair with a towel. She paused and watched the blonde reporter on the television as she stood up in protest, just as the station dissolved into static.

"Well, that was strange," Aileen murmured. Vampires, as everyone knew, were the stuff of myth and legends and popular fiction. Most likely the reporter was being fired, or at least given a stern talking to, for reporting something that wasn't really news at all. Either way it didn't help her with her own issue.

She thought about the graves over breakfast. When she had the dreams, she didn't have any sense of danger. She didn't believe it was a warning to her. And if it was, it was a crappy sort of warning to bring her closer to the danger instead of further away. So, for her own sanity, she assumed that she wasn't the one in danger. Yet, it didn't seem quite pressing enough to indicate someone else was in danger either. But, if the reason for the dream was already in the graves, what could she do about it? Dead was dead, wasn't it?

Her musings left her with more questions than answers, so she decided to take a different approach. If something recently had happened to the graves, perhaps there would be something in the news for it. So, she took refuge in the internet again and looked for newspaper articles in England surrounding graves or graveyards. There were a few mentions of grave digging, or bad rains destroying grave sites. There was even one rather morbid article about a bunch of people found dead in a church graveyard in the village of Cheddar. Unfortunately, that didn't help Aileen much, and put her off cheese for the next little while.

"What am I doing here?" she asked out loud, even though she was the only one in ear shot. Somehow, it helped just to vocalize things. She was hoping she would stumble across some clue. After all, her funds were not unlimited. Eventually she wouldn't be able to afford the room much longer. Could she even legally look for work in England? She had never even bothered to consider this.

That night she didn't dream of graves at all. Instead, she dreamed of running through a field at night. She couldn't tell where she was, but only that she was looking for someone, desperately trying to find him or her. Visually the dream was rather dull since the field never seemed to change. But the emotional impact left her feeling rather stunned. Through most of her life she had felt emotionally stunted, as though things just couldn't reach her the way they did most other people. No, that wasn't quite right. She could feel empathy for people, but she never felt attached to them. She could feel loneliness, but no one in particular seemed to ease it.

"Miss?" queried a gruff voice, interrupting her dream. For a moment Aileen felt angry. Why was someone in her hotel room? And why were they waking her up.

"Miss, this is private property. Please leave." Aileen opened her eyes. She wasn't in bed. She wasn't even in her hotel room. Instead she found herself standing in front of a gate. Far behind the gate was an old manor house. She blinked a few times, feeling a sense of panic well up inside her. How did she get here? Looking herself over, she was relieved to find that she was at least dressed; it would be even worse if she was standing here in her pajamas.

"I'm so sorry," she managed to blurt out, looking confused. "But I'm not even sure where I am," she confessed. The man who spoke to her before gave her a stern look, while his fellow guard raised his eyebrows. Then the second guard smiled faintly.

"Probably just a lost tourist," he said to the older guard. "She's certainly not British; you heard her voice." Aileen nodded her head. Better to have them believe she was lost in the normal sense rather than let on how truly lost she was. They might send her home, or lock her up for being crazy.

"That makes sense," the first guard said, relaxing slightly. "Just turn around and go back to town then Miss. You don't look like you want any trouble."

"Thank you," Aileen said quietly. "And no, I don't want any trouble. I've just never been so far from home." She turned and walked away from the gated manor. Every so often she looked back. The younger guard looked positively amused, while the other simply looked relieved that he didn't have to use the gun he was holding.


	3. The Order

_(_**Disclaimer: The world and characters of Hellsing are not mine, but at least they show up in this chapter.)**

_It's those graves again. Wait, one of them just vanished. Instead there's just a big black hole, with something dark red swirling in the bottom of it. What does it mean? Why won't these stupid things leave me alone? I don't know what you want! Why don't you just tell me and get it over with? I can't help you this way!_

Aileen woke in a sweat. For some reason her room seemed smaller than usual, she was feeling cramped. She had to get out of there. It didn't matter that it was late at night, if she stayed in there much longer she would start screaming, and she was pretty sure that would cause problem with the staff. Quickly she got dressed and left the hotel.

Hands shoved in her pockets, she wandered the streets rather aimlessly. She came from a small town, so she didn't really think much about having a night time stroll. Not that she had been prone to such things before. At one point she bumped into a young woman. Excusing herself profusely, she continued on her way, not even stopping long enough to take a look at the other woman. She really only noticed that the other person was blond, not very tall, and wore a hat. Embarrassed she picked up her pace, just in case the blond decided to take offense.

Secretly Aileen was intimidated by blonds. While the jokes often said that they were dumb, she couldn't really dismiss them behind laughter. Most of them just seemed so sure of themselves in high school. Her own dark hair always seemed so dead compared to the bright, sunny life of the blonds she knew. So she was intently relieved when the blond went around the corner and out of sight. Aileen continued her wandering, stopping only when she heard a sharp sound shatter the stillness of the evening. It sounded like it might have been a gunshot, but Aileen had no real experience with guns, so she wasn't certain. Since she heard nothing else, she dismissed it from her mind.

By the time she returned to the hotel, she was tired enough to pass right out. She slept so soundly that she didn't even dream. Or, if she did, it wasn't anything she could remember by morning. As refreshing as the walk had seemed last night, she was regretting it now. She felt stiff and sore. It wasn't anything that a shower couldn't cure, in theory. Generally she liked to take showers, but today something seemed wrong about it. She cleaned herself as quickly as possible and then got out.

"What's wrong with me?" she muttered. "I can dream of graves and never flinch, but having a shower scares the hell out of me." She rubbed the back of her neck. Why would a shower, something she'd been doing since she was little, instill in her a feeling of panic, a sense that something awful was about to happen. It made no sense. "I shouldn't have come here," she bemoaned.

Still, she couldn't seem to make herself leave either. Several times she picked up a phone, or logged into the internet, determined to book a flight home, but she always stopped herself short. It seemed like a force was stopping her from pressing the button each time. Sighing, she put that aside. She couldn't even make herself call home. Not that she expected her parents to understand anyhow. Yes, she loved her parents, but she wasn't very close to them. Like so many people she slowly and naturally grew distant from her parents into her teens.

That wasn't important now. She couldn't think of what to say to them anyhow. No, the only thing she could do now is figure out what the dreams meant. Maybe she should look up psychics or something. But even with the strangeness of her dreams, she was skeptical. After all, the odds were that she would find any number of charlatans before ever finding a real psychic, if such things even existed.

Finally she got herself dressed and left the hotel again. After some time she found herself walking along a walled section of the Thames. Somehow even the sturdy walls made her feel uneasy. She had never really been fond of water; when she was a little kid she nearly drowned once, and since then she couldn't get terribly close to large bodies of water. Still, she found herself looking into the water from a distance.

"Beautiful isn't it?" asked a voice, British of course. Aileen turned to see a man somewhere in his middle years.

"What, the Thames?" Aileen answered a question with a question. The man flinched slightly.

"No, no. It's with a hard 'T'. It sounds like tens, but with an M," the man explained. "But yes, I meant the river." Aileen felt her face go red with embarrassment.

"I've been speaking English my whole life, and it's the only thing I can speak, but I still don't get how it works," she confessed with a nervous little laugh. "I'm sorry; I didn't mean to butcher the name of your river so badly."

"That's alright. You're not the first to make the mistake, and I doubt you'll be the last."

"Well, in answer to your question, I don't really like rivers at all." Looking back to the water, she shuddered. And she was about to look away, when she caught something reflecting back at her. Where her face should have been was a much sadder face. Aileen knew her own face, and the one in the river certainly wasn't it. She turned to ask the man if he saw it too, only to find that he was gone. Not only was the man gone, but it seemed like far too much time had passed. Aileen pulled herself away from the wall.

Several photographs were spread across a table by a white gloved hand. They depicted a young woman, from her late teens to early twenties. She had dark brown hair and light blue eyes. While some might call her pretty, there was little that stood out about her.

"What am I looking at?" inquired a stern, female voice, accompanied by a plume of smoke.

"I'm not sure, Sir Integra. This young woman has been spotted at a few key locations, including outside the gates of the Hellsing estate. Most of these sightings have been in correlation with vampire attack," answered Walter, the Hellsing butler.

"And is there any evidence that she is related to them?" returned Integra, undisturbed.

"Not as such," admitted Walter with the faintest hint of a shrug.

"Still, we can't afford to indulge in the notion of coincidences," Integra finally said, the words forming around her cigar.

"Indeed. What are your orders, Sir Integra?"

"Interrogation."


	4. The Interrogation

___(_**Disclaimer: The world and characters of Hellsing are not mine.)**

_Why do you torment me? You have no eyes, but I feel as if you're staring at me. This time I felt the graves drawing me closer, and as much as I didn't want to approach, I found my feet wouldn't listen to reason. And as my feet brought me to stand on one of the graves, the earth opened up and swallowed me whole. I found myself falling, but never hitting the bottom. From high above me I heard a voice._

_"Wake up." The voice was faded, distant, and sad._

"Wake up!" The voice had changed. Slowly Aileen opened her eyes. If she was worried when she woke up to find she had been sleep walking, this was much worse. First of all, she was indoors, and it definitely wasn't her hotel room. This place was dim and made of stone. It looked old. Secondly, she seemed to be tied in place, which definitely wasn't a good sign. Third, there were two people in the room. The fact that they were strangers was worrisome enough, but to make matters worse, they were both blond women.

"Huh?" It wasn't the most intelligent thing Aileen had ever said, but nothing else seemed to want to come out. The taller of the two women stepped forward.

"Who are you?" she demanded coldly. Aileen fixed her eyes on the woman. She didn't look dangerous. She was taller than Aileen, but she didn't look terribly muscular. Her hair was a very pale shade of blond, mostly straight, and quite long. She seemed to be wearing a strange uniform. It was an unflattering shade of green with a stiff, white shirt beneath. At her neck was a blue cravat pinned with a cross. Her steel blue eyes were framed by thin-rimmed, functional glasses. And, though she didn't look scary, per se, the tone in her voice was the kind that would tolerate no nonsense. For a moment she made Aileen think of a school principle.

"My name is Aileen," the girl said, her voice trailing off in uncertainty. While she was certain of her name, she didn't really know if that was what the tall woman was asking. After all, who would take someone from their bed and tie them to a chair just to get a person's name? It seemed ridiculous. "Aileen Grayson," she clarified, just because a given name isn't very helpful.

"Hmph. American." The tall woman didn't at all seem impressed. Aileen twitched against her bonds. She'd never been tied to a chair before, and it was distinctly uncomfortable. Plus, the woman's words irritated her, despite her fear.

"Canadian, actually," she corrected. She wanted to sound defiant, but instead she merely sounded apologetic. The woman peered more closely at her.

"And that's the only objection you want to make?" she asked sternly.

"Well, no. I object to being tied up, but I'm guessing...I mean...I'm hoping there's a good reason for it," Aileen answered sheepishly. The woman raised her eyebrows. "I...um...if you don't mind, could one of you pinch me please? I just want to make sure I'm not dreaming." Both women looked mildly surprised at the request. The taller woman nodded to the younger, and motioned her ahead. Aileen's eyes shifted to the other blond.

She had rounded features that brought the phrase 'baby face' to Aileen's mind. She certainly looked younger than the taller woman. Her hair was a brighter shade of blond and cut much shorter. She wore a blue uniform that looked rather short, but had stockings that made up for the lack of length. Unlike the other woman, something looked familiar about the shorter blond. But really, what draw Aileen's attention the most was the woman's eyes. By some trick of the light, they looked red. This was strange, since the tall woman's eyes were clearly blue.

While Aileen was musing over the difference between the two women, the short one came up to her and pinched her arm. "Ow!" she exclaimed in surprise. "You didn't have to do that so hard to convince me. I'm sure that's going to bruise," she added in protest. She moved to rub the sore part of her arm, only to be reminded of the fact that she was tied in place. "I thought England was supposed to be a civilized country. This is NOT civilized!"

"Contain yourself!" the older of the two women barked. Aileen fell silent and looked at the floor. "That's better." There was a brief pause as the younger of the two blonds whispered a few words to the other. "You seem to have no supernatural presence about you. You do not carry yourself like a person trained in military functions. So you're either a very good actor, or just a bumbling youth." Aileen winced. The woman wasn't painting a very flattering picture of her. This was disheartening. "Do you know who I am?" she finally asked.

"I'm sorry, I have no clue," Aileen said, after giving it some thought. This woman was nothing like anyone she had ever seen before. Not even on TV. Then again, people on TV couldn't tie her to a chair.

"I am Sir Integra Hellsing," the woman said with a fair amount of cold pride. The name drew a blank for Aileen.

"Sir?" Aileen asked in confusion. People just didn't go around being called sir, especially not women. She had thought England was pretty modern. Well, she had heard of a few actors being given the title of Sir, but that had always seemed weird to her.

"I don't think she knows anything, Sir," said the second woman, finally speaking up. To Aileen the woman sounded even younger than she looked, and there was something soft and almost timid about her voice.

"We will see about that, Seras," Integra answered back. Then she motioned for her subordinate to follow her out of the room without another word to Aileen.


	5. The Decision

**(Disclaimer: As before, Hellsing is not mine.)**

_"No, don't run away from me," I cried out. A woman in a dress was running away from me. It didn't matter how fast I thought I was running, I couldn't catch up to her. Her black hair was coming undone and falling down her back. She wouldn't turn around, but somehow I knew that she knows I'm following her. I just wish I could see her face._

_"Don't fear," she called back to me._

Aileen woke up feeling stiff and sore, worse than she had after her one night of walking. Much to her relief, she wasn't tied up anymore. However, the room she was in looked more like a dungeon cell than anything else. It certainly wasn't welcoming. However, there was food set out for her, which was a blessing. While it was only soup and toast, it was enough for her stomach to tell her that yes, it was indeed, hungry. Tentatively she sniffed it, and it seemed to be safe, so she started eating it.

"What do you have for me Walter?" asked Integra, somewhat impatiently. In some ways the leader of the Hellsing Organization could be very patient, but this generally didn't apply when she was presented with a mystery. Especially if said mystery could be a potential threat to Queen and Country.

"Not much, I'm afraid. The girl, for all intents and purposes, is unremarkable. She was born in Western Canada and lived there her whole life up until recently, when she boarded a flight for London. Her parents are rather normal, and we traced each of them back at least three generations. She attended a normal school and earned normal grades. She has no criminal record in or out of Canada," explained Walter smoothly, standing stiffly to one side. Integra ground her cigar into the ashtray, her thin lips pressed in a straight line.

"The fact that she isn't strange is what is worrying me," she finally said. "We know what to do with monsters. We know what to do with traitors and decadent Catholics. We even know what to do with normal people who show violent or illegal tendencies." She shook her head. "By all accounts this woman shouldn't be on our radar. So why is she?"

"I wish I knew, Integra. I wish I knew."

Later Aileen was met again by the two blond women, Sir Integra and Seras. This time, however, she wasn't tied down. Oddly it made her feel more skittish. When she couldn't run, she wasn't tempted to, but now she kept eyeing the door and wondering if she would make it there before getting hurt in an escape attempt.

"Quit your fidgeting. We're not here to hurt you unless you give us a reason to," said the woman known as Integra Hellsing. Seras nodded from her place behind and a little to the left of Integra.

Aileen tried to calm herself. She sat still on the makeshift bed she had woken up on and folded her hands in her lap.

"That's better," said Integra, her tone a little less severe. "Now, what are you doing in England?"

"I'm not really sure," Aileen confessed with a sigh. "I just felt like I had to be here and I can't seem to make the decision to go home stick, so here I am." She gave a helpless gesture, palms up. "I'm not crazy though," she added defensively.

Integra fitted the tips of her fingers together as she regarded the young woman. Again she was hit with how different the situation was. If the girl truly was innocent, her tactics might break the girl, since most of them were necessarily rough. On the other hand, if the girl wasn't innocent, how many lives was she putting at risk? Integra was not a woman prone to wavering. She made hard decisions every day with an iron will. However, could she really claim to be protecting the innocent if she threw this girl to the wolves too easily?

She looked over to Seras. Maybe she should leave this in the fledgling vampire's hands. Between her and her master, she was the more diplomatic and less violent. Alucard might get answers fast, but he would undoubtedly leave Aileen a wreck. Plus, there was the possibility of an international incident. Then again, this girl wasn't terribly important; perhaps no one would notice if she never returned to Canada. All in all, the whole situation was a headache.

"Walk me through what happened," Integra finally said. Maybe if she just let the girl talk, she would learn something. She was no defiant vampire freak giving her the middle finger.

"I can try," Aileen answered nervously. She began to fidget again, but this time Integra let it pass. "I'd always wanted to go to England, but a while ago I just felt like I had to. As if it was the most important thing I could ever do. And I started having these dreams about a pair of really old graves. So I started searching for them." She took in a deep breath. "I looked around London, but I didn't find them. And then I woke up to find I had been sleep walking and ended up right in front of a big manor behind a gate. There were guards there, with guns, so I just left. I'm glad I didn't get shot." She shook her head a few times. She told Integra of the other dreams she had had. "And then I woke up here, all tied up. I really haven't done anything wrong," she insisted.

Integra had listened carefully. She didn't get the sense that this young woman was lying to her, but she also realized that she had no supernatural sense for such things and instead relied on human intuition. Still, the fact that she had shown up outside the Hellsing estate on the morning just before it was attacked by those horrible Valentine brothers was too hard to dismiss.

"Very well. I believe you, for now," she stated. "However, I have been tasked with a very important aspect of England's security. So I can't let you leave just yet until we get a little more confirmation." Aileen's face fell, clearly disappointed. Her lips quivered slightly, and her eyes leaked a couple tears, but she brushed them away.

"Okay," she said quietly. "You won't tie me up again, will you?"

"As you've said, you've done nothing wrong. This is mostly a safety precaution. While it's important for you to stay put, we're not punishing you. When we are satisfied that you are no threat, then you will be free to leave," Integra assured her cautiously.

"Can I get my things from the Hotel?" Aileen asked tentatively. She really wasn't sure what was going on, but things would be more bearable if she at least had her personal effects. Integra pursed her lips together.

"Very well. Seras, go with her," Integra commanded. The shorter blonde bobbed her head up and down with a smile.

"Yes Sir!" she answered with a salute. Then she turned to Aileen. "Come on then."


	6. The Meeting

**(Disclaimer: Hellsing and associated characters are not mine.)**

_"He's here," whispered a female voice. I looked around, but didn't see anyone. It was dark and I couldn't even tell where the voice was supposed to be coming from._

_"Who is here?" I asked._

_"He's here," repeated the voice. She sounded as though she was quite pleased about this. I just felt annoyed. All I wanted was a little bit of information, and these dreams kept being cryptic._

_"Thanks for the help," I muttered._

Aileen awoke in a small, sunny room. It wasn't home, and it wasn't the hotel, so it took her a bit to remember where she was: The Hellsing Manor. It seemed like such a pretentious name to Aileen, but she supposed such things were normal in England. Last night Seras had gone with her to her collect her stuff. She didn't really need the help, but she was sure Seras was just there to make sure she didn't split. It was nice of her to actually help.

Oddly enough, once she got settled into a guest room, Aileen felt comfortable. The promptings in her dreams didn't seem to be demanding she go anywhere else for the time being. Perhaps she was meant to be here. But it was still too early to tell. If the dreams meant anything, it seemed she was looking for someone, instead of something, though she still wasn't sure where the graves came in.

That reminded her of her new 'task'. Integra had insisted that she write down any dreams she had, as well as go back and write down all the dreams from the past. A pile of paper sat on the nightstand beside her, so she got to work right away in writing down her dream. When she was finished, she brought a copy to Integra. Since the strict blond seemed busy, she quietly left it on her desk and left again. Sir Integra was intimidating, but something about her reminded Aileen of her own mother. Mrs. Greyson was a strict woman who never gave an inch if she could help it. She was also fairly unemotional, and some people would joke and ask if she was an android.

It didn't take long for Aileen to get bored. As nervous as she was, she still felt uncomfortable doing absolutely nothing. She couldn't leave to pursue her quest for the graves. Eventually she coaxed the butler into letting her help around the place. Nothing special or fancy, but she would rather do dishes or mop the floor than just sit on her bed and wonder what was going to happen to her. Actually, she didn't have to coax that hard. Integra had 'asked' Walter to keep an eye on the guest. Seras was also to check in on her when she wasn't busy or sleeping.

Aileen's willingness to help was a mark in her favor. She didn't run off, or try to escape, or find somewhere to sulk. Not that she seemed overly brave. Then again, she didn't know that she should be afraid. Unlike most of the people in the manor, she had a relatively easy life. She didn't have to shoot her own uncle at a tender age, or lose her entire squad of officers, live through a world war, or any number of things. Because of this, the world was still a basically good place, not a thin veneer of civility hiding blood sucking monsters and human depravity.

While she didn't know the cause, Aileen could feel a sort of dark tension that hung over the manor. It didn't feel like a threat, per se, but there was just a sense of foreboding. The stiffness that came from Walter and Integra wasn't merely a matter of pride or propriety. Instead it seemed as though they were ready to spring into action at a moment's notice. This was less evident with Seras, but there was still something about her that didn't seem quite right.

Two days into her stay, she realized what that was. She was sitting in her room, humming a song to herself, when Seras knocked and entered when bidden. Aileen looked up and noticed two things. First, she realized that she had met Seras once before, albeit briefly. She was the blond she had bumped into that one night she couldn't sleep. Secondly, she realized the woman had red eyes.

"Your eyes are red," she noted, curious. Seras blinked a couple of times.

"Yes, I guess they are."

"That's not a normal eye color. Do they hurt?" Seras shook her head.

"No, my eyes feel fine, but thanks for asking," she answered with a smile. Of all the people there, she seemed the friendliest to Aileen, despite the fact she was a blond. "By the way, I'm sorry you're stuck here. It must be pretty strange for you. But you wouldn't be here if it wasn't important." She spoke with such conviction that Aileen could only nod in agreement.

"Well, I didn't think I was here just for someone's amusement," she returned. "I was really scared at first, but nothing really bad has happened to me yet."

Aileen had spoken too soon. The final resident of the manor, the one she hadn't met yet, had been walking by. Alucard had heard that someone was staying here. He had also heard that she was so very normal. But, most importantly, the strangeness that surrounded her was giving his master a headache. He had suggested that he could get answers, but Integra shot that notion down, expressly forbidding him from harming the girl. She didn't, however, say that he couldn't scare her a little.

Alucard was not a man to resist temptation, and he was known for his rather malicious nature. It didn't take him long to decide he was going to greet this guest for himself and take her measure. Perhaps a little screaming would ensue and they might learn something new. He could at least justify it as such later. After all, people didn't die of fright; they usually needed a little help. So, without further deliberation, he phased in through the wall.

His predictions had been right. There was a feminine little scream as he appeared on the other side of the wall, and his mouth curled up in a smile at the sound. The young woman, a brunette in her late teens or early twenties, was pointing at him, eyes wide. At the sound, Seras turned around to see her master. She couldn't help but smile, although the expression wasn't anything like Alucards.

"Master!" she exclaimed, and it was evident to Aileen that the blond was happy to see this man. She also took a cue from the fact that Seras was not screaming; she didn't even look surprised. Then she frowned a bit. "Master! You shouldn't scare her like that."

Aileen edged closer to Seras, her eyes still wide, though she had stopped the screaming.

"Does he do that often?" she asked with a quaver in her voice. Seras nodded assent. While her knees felt very wobbly, Aileen tried to calm herself. If Seras wasn't worried, did this mean she shouldn't either? Taking a few deep breaths, she slowly worked at getting her heart rate back to normal levels. Once she felt more secure, she turned to get a good look at the man.

What she saw made her knees wobble again. The man was very tall with broad shoulders, and he didn't just stand, he loomed. He wore a rather unique looking outfit. His suit looked old fashioned, and was dark grey, with a red tie at his throat. Matching the tie was a long, open front coat and a red hat with a very large brim. On his feet he wore tall boots, and his hands were covered in white gloves. In contrast to the dark and vibrant colors he wore, his face was pale. She couldn't tell what his eyes were like since they were covered in glasses with orange lenses. Beneath the hat, his hair was black, and she suspected it was on the unruly side.

With a couple strides of his long legs, he was standing before Aileen, which accentuated how tall he was. The look he gave her made her feel like a bug about to be squashed. Afraid her knees would give out entirely, Aileen sat down. But she couldn't take her eyes off of him; she wasn't sure if she even wanted to.

_"Don't fear." _It was the voice from her dream again, though this was the first time she heard it while awake. She would have to tell Integra about it, if she remembered after this encounter. As it was, her thoughts seemed to all congregate on this rather strange personage in front of her.

"Yes," replied Seras. She seemed about to say more, but a single look from the man silenced her.

"Who are you?" she asked the man. The question didn't seem entirely afraid. Nor was it a demand. Rather there was a hint of confusion in her voice, and Aileen's eyebrows drew together. Her expression was quizzical, as though trying to remember something that was eluding her grasp.

"Alucard," the man said, giving his name with a mocking bow. Aileen frowned and shook her head.

"No, that's not right," she said, more to herself than to Alucard.

The next moment she gasped. In less time than it took for her to blink, the man had drawn closer, his nose nearly touching her nose. From behind the glasses she could see red eyes glaring at her.

"Who are you to tell me what my name is or is not?" he demanded with a hiss, teeth bared, fangs exposed. Aileen gasped again in shock and couldn't find the words to reply right away. "Answer me!" Alucard demanded.

"Master..." interjected Seras tentatively. It wasn't her nature to go against her master, but at the same time, she knew of Integra's orders. Aileen was greatly relieved when those words seemed to make the man in red reconsider. He took a single step back and crossed his arms over his chest, still glaring at the young woman who dared challenge him.

"I can't explain it," she said, rather hastily. "It's just part of the mystery. I wish I knew." She looked down at the floor. "I meant no offense, sir."

"Sir? I leave that for Integra," Alucard said with derision. He didn't think much of this young woman, who didn't have the iron will of Integra, or even the spark that Seras had. It was just as well Integra had forbidden him from hurting the girl; he was certain that she would be of no use to anyone once he was finished with her. Still, she seemed a perfect example of the ignorant 'innocents' that Integra was so eager to protect. But such people were not his to deal with. Without another word, he phased back out through the wall.

Aileen let out a deep breath that she didn't realize she had been holding. She collapsed back against the seat. Seras looked over to her to make sure she was alright. Aileen smiled back, though the expression was a bit shaky.

"I think that's the most afraid I've ever been," she admitted. "I've never made anyone that angry with me before. I shouldn't have doubted his name; that's not like me either." Seras patted her arm gently.

"Master takes some getting used to," she said. Even with his temper, she was still devoted to him. But Aileen didn't seem to be criticizing him, so she felt no need to go to his defense. Not that he needed, or would even want it.

"It's strange that you call him Master like that," Aileen noted. "Then again, everything here seems really strange. I mean, I'd never even met a real butler before coming here, or been in a house this big. And then, when Alucard came through the wall like that, I thought my heart was never going to start up again." She sighed. "I knew I was going to a different country, but I feel like I'm in another world entirely."

Later Seras gave her report to Integra about what happened. Integra listened with a mixture of annoyance and worry. She rubbed her forehead as though it pained her. Lighting a cigar, she smoked in silence for a few minutes.

"And you say she contested his name, just like that?" she asked Seras.

"Yes. She sounded positive, but at the same time she looked confused. And she couldn't take her eyes off of him. I could tell she was scared, her heart was going so fast, but she did better than I would have thought."

"But she didn't ask how he was able to phase through the wall?"

"No."

"She probably has a lot of questions by now. I will have to consider what answers to give, if any."

(**A/N:** I'm torn at this point between several options of how to proceed. So, if you, dear reader(s) were Integra, what would you tell this girl? Don't be shy.)


	7. The Consent

**(Disclaimer: Hellsing is not mine.)**

_"So close," said the woman's voice. It almost sounded like a whimper to me, like she was begging for something. And I still didn't know who she was. I still couldn't see her face; it always seemed to be turned just away from me. I wondered if she was toying with me, but I dismissed the idea. After all, if she wanted my help that badly, why would she make it harder on me?_

Aileen woke up and instantly took a deep breath, almost as though she had been holding it in her sleep. Stretching she stood up slowly. She was actually feeling pretty good this morning. It almost didn't matter that she was here by force. Well, technically she never tested whether or not they would use force if she tried to leave, but she would rather not investigate too much into it. After all, she knew that at least some of them had guns. Plus, whoever Alucard was, he could go right through walls.

How did he do that? Aileen had never been overly superstitious. Not that she was completely skeptical either. She just had never seen anything to make her believe that there was anything supernatural roaming around. Seeing Alucard phase through the wall had shaken her pretty badly. Having him face to face with her had been terrifying. She actually wondered at herself for being able to sleep after this.

Perhaps she was rationalizing it too much. After all, Seras had seemed pretty unsurprised by the situation, and was even happy to see the strange man in red. There were other people in this manor too, and all of them seemed to think they were safe. If anyone here had wanted to hurt her, she would already have been hurt. Or was this too optimistic? Aileen wished she could be more certain. Again, her innocence protected her to some degree. Because she hadn't experienced much of the hardships in life, she didn't automatically think of the dangers that other people presented. It just wasn't how her mind worked.

Eventually she made her way down to the kitchen. There she offered to do some dishes, leaving Walter to do something else for a while. Humming to herself, she got to work. Alucard caught the sound as he was passing by, and it made him pause. Why was the girl so damned happy? The Hellsing Organization was a serious place. Didn't she realize it? Maybe he should give her a reason to be less cheerful; there were predators about after all.

Although he didn't make a sound as he phased through the wall, Alucard watched the girl turn towards him the moment he entered the room. Aileen was surprised to see him there, as evidenced by the look on her face, but she had felt that she needed to turn at that moment. She smiled sheepishly, lowering her eyes for just a moment, before looking back up at him. Alucard smiled back, far less sheepishly; the expression was more like that of a wolf, fangs and all. The girl stiffened slightly, but didn't look away. Instead, she took a step towards him.

For a moment Alucard was tempted to scare her off. How dare such a mundane specimen of humanity approach him like that? On the other hand, he was curious what she was going to do. It wasn't as though she was a threat to him, and he could always shake her up later. So he stood very still as Aileen stepped closer. The look on her face was a cross between confusion and wonder. She didn't stop until she was within arm's length. Then she reached up as though to touch his face and he found himself leaning forward slightly.

As Aileen's finger touched the smooth surface of the vampire's skin, she cried out almost as if in pain. There was a sensation almost like a spark at the contact, though it caused no pain to the mighty Alucard. However, his mind was flooded with a rapidly flashing series of images, just as Aileen's mind was flooded. But the mortal girl wasn't used to such things, and she soon collapsed, breaking the contact and banishing the images.

Lips curled in annoyance, Alucard peered down at the unconscious girl. He thought of leaving her there, but then he decided to dump her in Integra's lap, so to speak. The girl was her problem, after all. Unceremoniously he scooped up the girl; only gentle enough to make sure he didn't harm her, and strode down to Integra's office.

"Your guest is broken," he declared, dumping the girl on Integra's desk. Integra shot Alucard a look of annoyance.

"What did you do to her?" she demanded, raising from her seat to better face her vampire.

"Nothing. She is the one who touched me," Alucard responded with emphasis.

"Tell me what happened," Integra said with a sigh. She had ordered Alucard not to harm her, so she had to believe that he hadn't actually done anything to her. In a few words Alucard explained what happened.

"Foolish girl," murmured Integra. "Do you have any idea what the cause was?"

"Change your orders and we can find out very quickly," Alucard said with a dark smile. While he might not think much of Integra's 'guest', he had smelled her blood and it wasn't tainted.

"Let's wait for the girl to wake up. She should have at least one more chance to tell us something. But this mystery has gone on long enough."

"Yes, my Master," said Alucard with a sarcastic bow as he phased back through the wall.

Integra looked at the inert form of the girl on her desk. She much preferred dealing with people who were obviously enemies or obviously allies. This girl just seemed to break all the rules simply because she was a normal human being. It vexed Integra deeply, but at the same time, she felt her hands were tied. If she started disregarding the safety of such innocents, then she would follow a slippery slope until she was no better than the enemies she fought. She would not cross that line if she could at all help it.

"So much pain," Aileen murmured in her sleep. Walter had taken her to her room and was watching over her. He knew of Integra's frustration with the situation, but she didn't disappoint him by taking the easy way out. His own experiences with Aileen showed she was friendly and willing to help, which were both positive traits. However, he felt a little sorry for how she was dragged into this whole thing. While Alucard saw the girl as weak, Walter was actually impressed at how calm the girl was for the most part. A lot of people would have been quite a wreck by this point.

"What do you want from me?" Aileen was still talking in her sleep, and Walter shook his head. Integra had told him what Alucard had reported. It was known that Alucard could affect the minds of others, but Walter didn't recall hearing of transference of images going unbidden to the vampire's mind before. Perhaps it justified Integra's command to keep the girl here. But sometimes a coincidence is merely a coincidence. Walter gave the girl an awkward pat on the arm.

Later Aileen woke up. For once, she hadn't dreamed. At least, she hadn't dreamed of anything visually. But her sleep had been restless, filled with a jumble of emotions that she couldn't quite grasp. Her eyes opened to see the loyal butler sitting on a chair, watching her with concern.

"What happened?" she asked groggily.

"I'm sorry, young Miss, but we're really not sure," the butler said frankly. "However, I told Sir Integra that I would fetch her as soon as you were awake. Please wait here."

"Miss Greyson, it's time we got to the bottom of this," Integra said, eyes focused intently on Aileen from across her desk. Seras sat beside Aileen on the other side of Integra's desk. Walter stood behind Integra and to the side. Alucard was at the back of the room, leaning on a wall. After Aileen had told Integra was happened at her last meeting with Alucard, the leader of Hellsing had summoned everyone here.

"I'm not sure what to tell you, Sir Hellsing," Aileen said tentatively, shrinking within herself under the hard gaze of Integra.

"While I doubt you have been lying to us, I can't ignore that possibility any longer," Integra said. "But as you have done nothing to prove you are a threat, I don't want to apply too much force." She frowned. "I want your cooperation."

"I'll do what I can, but I don't know what more I can do to cooperate."

"As you have already noticed, Alucard is not a normal man." Integra paused until Aileen nodded in agreement. "He has a method of retrieving information from you. Generally we don't ask for consent, but this is a rather unique situation."

"Will it hurt?" asked Aileen timidly. Noticing the look of disapproval on Integra's face, she hastily added, "I mean, permanently." She had a momentary vision of having someone break her fingers, or legs, as they often did in the movies to extract information.

"Nothing that won't heal," Integra said cautiously, eyeing Alucard in the back of the room. He looked far too smug; he was undoubtedly enjoying watching Integra flounder around in this unusual situation. It didn't help that he was about to get something he wanted. A taste of fresh blood, sanctioned by his Master, was a rare treat.

Aileen closed her eyes. For a moment she felt a surge of panic try to well up to the surface. But something else seemed to be forcing it down. Slowly she nodded her head.

"If you think this is the only way to get some answers...then I agree," she said finally. Her eyes were still closed, so she didn't see the surprised looks on Integra and Sera's faces. She did, however, hear the throaty chuckle coming from the back of the room, which sent a shiver up her spine. Then she heard booted footsteps come towards her and felt her chair being turned around. But she didn't open her eyes again until she felt a hand on her knee.

The first thing she saw was Alucard kneeling in front of her. For the first time she saw him without his glasses and hat. From beneath his wild black bangs, his red eyes glowed with anticipation, looking at her with mocking hunger. She knew she should be afraid, but at the moment she just felt disconnected from anything, as though she was just a passenger in her own body.

Aileen's calmness might have bothered Alucard at any other time since he did so love the smell of fear. But the girl was so still that he wouldn't even have to compel her to sit. This didn't happen every century, and he felt his eagerness rise. This moment was worth savoring. Not only was his victim agreeable, but this act was sanctioned by his master. Add to the fact that it was virgin blood, and it almost made for a perfect meal. In fact, the only thing missing was a bloody battle, but in light of everything else, the warrior in him could go without for once.

Still, he couldn't resist the temptation to bare his fangs at her in a smile before moving towards her neck. She shivered slightly at this, but made no protest or attempts to escape her fate. Slowly Alucard moved his way towards his prize, sensing each throb of her heart beneath the smooth skin of her neck. He took a moment to inhale the scent of life running through that vital vessel.

"Alucard." Integra managed to put both a warning and a reminder into that single word, her tone revealing her meaning quite clearly to the vampire. Alucard answered this with a look of feigned annoyance before turning back to Aileen.

"Fee, fi, fo, fum, I smell the blood of a Canadian," he whispered into her ear. Then he moved his mouth further away from the neck and down towards her shoulder. Fangs extended, he pierced the skin to get to the hot blood beneath it, eager to stain his tongue red.


	8. The Message

**(Disclaimer: Hellsing is not mine.)**

_I shouldn't have been dreaming; I was pretty sure I was still awake. Was I dying? The last thing I remembered was Alucard whispering something about my blood. He had fangs...he bit me. And then I found myself here. But where is here?_

Aileen looked around. She wasn't sitting in a chair anymore. Integra, Walter, and Seras were nowhere to be seen. Instead she was standing in a bedroom made of stone. It lacked any modern conventions, but she wasn't enough of an historian to guess when, or where, she was supposed to be. A woman sat at a dressing table, brushing out her dark brown hair.

The woman was interrupted by the sound of shattering glass as an arrow came in through her window. Attached to it was a scrap of parchment. Aileen felt frozen in place as she watched the woman read the note, her face expressing pain and horror. Then the woman paced to the window, and Aileen felt herself being dragged along by some unseen force. Outside there were many torches in the distance, their flames illuminating the night. With a cry, the woman flung herself from the tower into the river below, and Aileen was helpless to stop her. Instead, she found herself falling and the world blurred around her.

When the world came into focus, she found herself on the bank of the river she had earlier seen from above. Washed ashore was the broken body of the woman she had seen, torn remnants of the dress soaked and plastered to her, her face bleeding from damage against the rocks. Aileen had never seen anything quite like that, and she started to sob.

"Don't weep for me," a voice said softly. Aileen turned to find a faded version of the woman standing behind her. "I died long ago and your tears won't change that." She even smiled slightly as she looked down at the broken version of her body. "But now you will see why you are here." Slowly the woman began to walk along the river, and Aileen felt compelled to follow her.

Aileen was sure that time was flowing oddly in the 'dream'. Though the two of them walked at a normal pace along the river, the seasons seemed to change as they moved. It would take months for this to happen. She felt as though the scene was being fast forwarded, though their own speed remained constant. What did that mean?

"Who are you?" she asked the woman. The woman gave her no verbal reply; she merely put a finger to her faded lips in a gesture of silence. As tranquil as most of her face looked, her eyes showed a deep intensity. "Are you a ghost?" Aileen asked next. The woman stopped for a moment, as though to consider the question deeply. Then she nodded her head and resumed walking.

Aileen wasn't sure how much time passed as they went, but eventually they departed from the river. Signs of a war littered the ground. Aileen wanted to shut the vision out, but she couldn't escape it. If she had been fully left to her own volition, she would have likely been quite sick. As it was she had to put foot before foot in an inexorable march forward, following behind the pale woman.

Eventually they stopped. Piles of bodies dotted the area. An executioner stood on a platform, axe in hand, waiting for the next head to sever. Trembling, the ghostly woman watched as a group of soldiers 'escorted' a figure towards them. He was shirtless, his pants badly torn, his body bruised and beaten. He looked more dead than alive, his wrists and neck trapped in a heavy board as he was forced along by a rope.

With horror Aileen watched as the man's head was forced on a block. The men surrounding her spoke in a language she did not know, but she doubted they were saying anything good. Execution like this was barbaric, and she wanted to scream about it, stop it from happening, but not even a squeak escaped her lips. She turned to see how the ghost woman was responding to this travesty, only to see her watch with anguish as the scene unfolded. She moved towards him, kneeling beside the prisoner, unheeded by the executioner and the soldiers. She put a hand on his shoulder, then on top of his head, her lips moving to speak whispers that Aileen could not hear. Despite the pain on the woman's face, there was gentleness there as well as she continued to whisper, and her body language showed evidence of intimacy.

Even more horrific, the prisoner, who looked oddly familiar, had began to lap up the blood in front of him, left there by those executed before him. He didn't seem to notice the woman near him who attempted to offer comfort. As he lapped the blood, the woman beside him seem to fade even more until she was almost transparent as what little substance she had left seemed to be drawn into the man. And then the axe came down upon the man's neck and the world blurred into darkness again.

When Aileen could see again she couldn't tell where she was. She was alone with the ghostly woman. Around them was nothing but empty darkness. The only light seemed to be coming from the ghostly woman. Aileen finally felt free of any restriction; she felt like her own person again.

"What happened?" she asked. "Why did I have to see all this? Who are you and who was that man?" Tears filled her eyes and her words stumbled over each other as she tried to say too many things at once. Learning about such things in history was one thing, but this was another matter entirely.

"I'm sorry for all this," the woman said slowly. "But I had been trying to reach him for over five centuries. Life played a cruel game on me and I died before my time. I thought my husband was dead, only to watch him killed while I was helpless. I am but a weak spirit, I could not have gotten here without a host body."

"But why me?" Aileen naturally wanted to know.

"I have been wandering for a long time. When you nearly drowned, it was so close to my own death that I was able to slip inside your mind. It was I who pushed you towards England, it was I who sent you those dreams. I tried to walk you right into the Hellsing manor, but those guards stopped us."

"What were you trying to accomplish?" asked Aileen. "What good did coming here do?"

The woman stared at her for a long time, her expression thoughtful.

"I merely wished to be reunited with my husband," she finally said.

"All this was for romance?" Aileen asked, rather bewildered.

"No!" said the woman sharply, her eyes narrowing a trifle. "I'm not sure if I will be able to make you understand." She turned away from Aileen. "We didn't get married for love the way people seem to do now. It was all about status, and connections, and power. But more than that, it was about unity. _Loyalty_." The last word was stressed. She shook her head. "Everything I had and everything I was, belonged to _him. _What I felt in my heart didn't matter.He was not a gentle man, not a soft spoken person. His life had been hard. He had been betrayed on all sides. That was something I would not do. It didn't matter what his goals were, or how he achieved them, it was my place to be at his side through it all. I wanted to be his rock; the one thing that wouldn't alter." She paused as though to gather her thoughts, regret welling deeply in her eyes. "When I heard that he was dead, it didn't occur to me that it was a vicious lie. He was dead, but I was still his. I would not let my weak flesh betray him to his enemies; they would never have me. So I jumped. It wasn't death I looked for, merely escape."

Aileen found her mind fill with so many questions, but she found the woman's words mesmerizing. The woman's conviction astounded her. It made her think of the other woman, Integra; they were both women of steel. But what was the tie between them?

"In a way I did escape, but I left my body behind, broken from the river. I thought maybe I would find my husband in the afterlife, but I eventually overheard that he was alive. Still, I couldn't communicate with anyone, and I was forced to wander in silence. Finally his reign was brought to an end. As you saw, he was going to be executed. I was angry, and I was sad, but I also felt hopeful. Perhaps, we would finally meet again on the other side." She turned back towards Aileen. "We were denied even that much. He didn't know I was there, he thought he had lost everything, and so he made a pact with the blood spilled on the executioner's block. While he didn't know it, he drew upon my essence in that moment; I don't know what would have happened if I hadn't been there." Again she stopped, letting the information sink into Aileen's mind.

"But what does that have to do with where I am now?"

"That man you saw, Alucard as he calls himself now, is my husband. That wasn't the name I knew him by in life, however," explained the ghost. "And it's not the name the world knows him by either." She sighed deeply. "You see, the pact changed him, gave him great power and near immortality. It fed his anger. Blood and death had been his bread and butter for so long, and believing that all was lost, including himself, he indulged in such things. This only made him stronger. But I couldn't keep up with him any longer. I was weakened greatly from what happened at the execution, and nothing I did could make him notice me. I spent most of my time either trying to reach him, or resting when I couldn't go on any further. Eventually he was bound by a man to do his bidding. The woman who brought you into the manor, Integra, is his ultimate granddaughter."

"And now that we're here?"

"They say blood is the currency of life. The only way I could reach him was through blood, and mine dried up centuries ago. I couldn't find a suitable carrier until I found you. Now that I have departed all this to you, I must let you go. You have my profound and eternal thanks. Farewell."


	9. The Reaction

**(Disclaimer: I don't own Hellsing.)**

_Why do I feel so empty? A part of me is missing now; I'm sure of it. But what part?_

Aileen couldn't tell how much time had passed since she had felt the initial pain of Alucard's fangs piercing her skin. As he withdrew them, her dream world had shattered. Upon it shattering she began to cry. They weren't quiet, stifled sobs. No, they were loud, wracking sobs as though her heart had been truly and utterly broken. And she couldn't seem to calm them, even though she felt as if Integra was staring at her with disapproval.

In fact, Integra was feeling no such thing at the moment. She was merely surprised at the girl's reaction. These were not the cries of someone in physical pain. And she didn't seem frightened either. Seras patted the girl's shoulder, trying to comfort her, but Aileen didn't even seem aware of this.

"Walter; get the girl some juice," Integra said. Usually they didn't have to worry about administering to someone after a vampire bite; generally the people were either too far gone to save, or there was no intention of saving them in the first place. But blood clinics often gave the donators juice, so it seemed a good idea in this situation. That being taken care of, she turned towards Alucard, who had resumed his place leaning against the wall.

"Well?" she asked him. His expression was blank, offering her no clue as to what, if anything, he had discovered. He shook his head slightly.

"It wasn't what I expected," he finally said, his tone flat, betraying nothing.

"What did you see?" Integra pressed.

"I have a lot to think about," Alucard said, pushing off the wall and walking away.

"Alucard!" screamed Integra, feeling ignored. The vampire turned back and fixed her with his red gaze. He didn't look particularly defiant, but had a very thoughtful look on his face. If she didn't know better, she would describe it as partially sad, and partially confused. But that didn't fit what she knew of him at all.

"The girl is no threat," he said, his voice tight. "That is all you need to know for now." While his words indicated he was snubbing her authority, his expression actually asked her not to press the point. During this whole conversation, Aileen continued to sob. "Just tend to her." And with that, he left, using the door for once.

Integra surprised a sigh. She looked towards Seras, who had watched her Master go with mild concern. But she didn't seem terribly upset. Surely if there was a problem with Alucard, Seras would react somehow. As for Aileen, well, Integra was not used to comforting people. She was a leader, someone who issued orders and expected to be obeyed. Somehow she doubted that she could simply command this girl to stop crying and achieve immediate results. By the time Walter came back with the juice, she was still sobbing, although it wasn't as intense as it had been.

"Please drink the juice Miss; you'll feel better," said Walter, trying to be encouraging without ruffling his beautifully starched butler manner.

"Yes, it will be good for you," agreed Seras, smiling in hopes that it would cheer the girl up some. Aileen nodded weakly and took the juice from Walter. Her sobbing stopped while she drank it, though her body continued to shake. She took it all down in slow sips, her eyes closed as she drank. Finally she finished, keeping the glass between her two hands.

"What happened?" Integra asked now that Aileen seemed calm.

"There was a woman in my head," she started. Then, realizing how crazy that made her sound, she smiled faintly. "I mean, she was a ghost that somehow had been traveling inside my mind since I was very young. She wanted to come here." Aileen lowered her voice. "She was looking for Alucard. And now he has her and I'm alone." She started to sob again. This time Integra _was_ annoyed.

"Why would she look for Alucard?" Integra asked. "Was it for revenge?" That was the first reason to cross her mind why anyone would look for the man, the vampire, who had brought so many people to their deaths.

"No. It wasn't anything like that," Aileen said through her sobs. "But I think he should tell you himself; it was very personal." She held tightly to the glass. "Because this ghost was with me, my feelings seemed smothered under her will. Now I feel so alone, but I feel it so keenly. I never did before," she said, trying to explain why she was sobbing so much.

Integra was thoughtful. She had been raised to keep her feelings in check. For most of her life she had exercised a great deal of control, and usually the only emotion to escape her was anger because she could use that to fuel herself to keep going as well as motivate her men to do well. But this was a decision she had made, reinforced by how young she was when her own uncle tried to murder her. On the other hand Aileen's emotions had apparently been dampened by a ghost. Without the ghost in her mind, she had no defense against such things. Integra had no respect for the weak minded, but she had a feeling that it wasn't weakness exactly in this situation.

"You should probably get some rest. This must have been very difficult for you," Integra said, trying to sound as gentle as she could. Whatever flaws the girl had, it seemed she didn't have much choice in ending up here. It wasn't Integra's place to judge her outside of keeping Hellsing safe; Aileen wasn't even a British citizen. "Seras, go with her," she added. Aileen had tried to stand up, but she was still shaking quite a bit. Carefully Walter relieved her of the glass so she wouldn't drop and break it. Seras nodded her head and let the girl lean on her while the two went to Aileen's room.

Once in her room, it didn't take long for Aileen to fall asleep. Crying often wears a person out. Add to that the blood loss, and the intensity of her 'dream', and it wasn't a surprise. Seras watched her for a few moments, thoughtful. She wondered exactly what had happened that was so distressing, or that would have her master simply walk away like that. He had even used the door; usually he would just phase through the wall.

(**A/N: **Sorry this update took so long; I've been doing NaNoWriMo as well this month, and it has a very specific deadline, so I had to take a little extra time to make sure I stayed caught up. I'm also sorry if this is a bit short; but I have a few different ideas on where I want to go from here, so now is a good time for people to 'speak' up and give me an opinion, or even take a guess at what might happen.**)**


	10. The Aftermath

(**Disclaimer: I do not own Hellsing.**)

_My dreams are so vague now. They don't have the purpose they used to, or the sense of meaning. They're just dribs and drabs of nonsense. I usually can't remember them when I wake up. I'm not sure that I want to._

Aileen was pensive. While the ghost had been inside of her, she had been much calmer. Now she just felt like she couldn't get comfortable. She moped around the Hellsing manor and wasn't really interested in talking to anyone. When she helped Walter she was quiet and listless. Integra left her severely alone; she wasn't interested in berating the young woman, neither was it her job to coddle the girl. Seras tried to be friendly, but all she got from Aileen was a few noncommittal responses and nods.

As for Alucard, no one saw much of him. He still did jobs as they were required, but he didn't seem ready to discuss what happened the other day with Aileen. Integra's patience was wearing thin, and she was tempted to command him to tell her outright. But intuition told her to hold back for now. She took Alucard at his word that the girl posed no threat.

The tension finally broke after about a week. A somewhat subdued Alucard approached Integra while she was alone in her office. The conversation between them was brief. Alucard simply told her that one of his past wives had hitched a ride with Aileen and wanted to return to him. Integra had to keep her face serious while listening to this story, but it did make her consider him in a different light. She knew his history, both as the historical Vlad as well as the vampire who had been crossed by her ancestor. But she hadn't really thought of him as some woman's husband; especially not one that a woman would spend five hundred years trying to return to. It was somewhat unsettling to realize that there was yet another side to him that she was not familiar with.

A little while later, Alucard approached Aileen. She was sitting in the drawing room looking out the window at the rain. Seras was curled up on a couch reading a newspaper. As Alucard entered the room, she put down the paper and smiled. Somehow she never could conceal her happiness when she saw her Master appear, even if she sometimes accused him of being mean. At the sound of someone entering the room, Aileen turned around. Seeing Alucard, she paled slightly. He walked up to her and stopped a couple feet away. Then he did something that surprised both girls in the room. He knelt on a single knee and bowed his head.

"I don't say this lightly: I owe you a debt of gratitude," he said in that dark voice of his. Aileen blushed deeply, which generally isn't a wise thing to do in front of a vampire. Tentatively she reached to touch his shoulder.

"Please don't," she began, "it really wasn't anything. I mean, I didn't even know I was doing it until it was already done." Clearly she was quite flustered and this caused Alucard to chuckle deep in his throat. Standing up, he loomed over her quite a bit. His height alone would have been intimidating, and Aileen knew what he was. Still, it wasn't exactly fear she felt.

"You did it just the same, and so you have my thanks," he stated, staring at her rather directly. It was a gaze that had made many grown men falter, and Aileen was not a hardened individual. She lowered her gaze a trifle, but didn't look completely away. Seras watched the scene unfold with keen interest. Surely Aileen couldn't know that Alucard rarely bowed to anyone. It seemed almost comical seeing him do so for such a commonplace seeming young woman. Usually he reserved such things for Integra, his master, and the Queen, who was royalty and deserved such a respect. She would have to ask him about it later.

"I'm not sure what to say, but I'm really glad I could help," Aileen said, faltering slightly.

"You don't need to say anything," Alucard assured her. "Just keep it in mind."

"I will," replied Aileen, actually allowing a smile to cross her lips. It was a bit on the timid side, but it was sincere. Alucard chuckled once more and then turned to leave. Seras ran after him.

"Master?" she inquired once they were a little ways away.

"Yes, Police Girl?" The question sounded a bit absent.

"What exactly did happen?" Seras wanted to know. "No one will tell me anything." She sounded a bit petulant. He was _her_ master after all.

"Ask Integra," Alucard said. Then he phased himself through a wall. This often annoyed Seras, but he didn't care. If she wanted to learn such tricks, then she should listen to him. Not that Seras was disobedient for the sake of being disobedient; she just valued her humanity highly and was very afraid of losing it. However, the idea to ask Integra seemed like a good one, so she listened.

She found Integra in her office. Sheepishly she looked in to see if the woman was terribly busy. Since she didn't seem any busier than usual, she walked in and gave a little cough to announce herself. Integra looked up from her work and eyed Seras expectantly, waiting for the young vampire to speak up.

"Master said I should ask you about what happened with the girl," she said. Integra gave Seras a brief rundown of what Alucard told her, which made the information second hand. Seras had less control than Integra and couldn't quite stifle a giggle.

"He had a wife?" she asked in surprise. It just seemed so strange to her. She wasn't educated the same way as Integra, so her notion of a married couple was far more modern, and it wasn't something that meshed with her experiences so far with her master.

"You must remember he was nobility," Integra said a little stiffly, "it would have been very unusual if he had not been married." She frowned briefly. Even five hundred years later, there was still a lot of pressure on the nobility to marry. She was the last member of the Hellsing family, and she idly wondered when the pressure would come down on her head.

Seras just shook her head. Intellectually she understood this, but it still seemed too farfetched. It was even stranger to her that this woman, who had been dead for so long, had just found him now. What had she been doing for the past five hundred years? Sucking on her bottom lip, she wondered if this would make any difference. Would it make her Master any happier now that he was reunited with his wife?

"Was there anything else?" Integra asked. Seras came out of her thoughts with a jolt.

"Uh, no. Thank you," she said with a little laugh and then excused herself.


	11. The Arrangements

**(Disclaimer: Hellsing doesn't belong to me.)**

**(AN: I changed some small details in The Message.)**

_What am I supposed to do now? I've fulfilled my mission, and now I just feel empty. But I don't really feel like going back home. Does this mean there's something wrong with me?_

Aileen was doing better as far as anyone could tell on the outside. She seemed less withdrawn at any rate. Still, she was pretty quiet nonetheless. Her expression was often distant as she helped Walter around the manor. Even though he was fairly kind to the girl, and even a little grateful for the help, he didn't press for a reason to her change of demeanor. Though he did tell Integra that he found his work a lot easier with the girl around; he wasn't as young as he used to be. A few weeks later Integra called the girl into her office.

"Sit," she said to Aileen, gesturing to the chair across from her desk. Aileen did so with a timid smile. "Walter tells me you've been helping quite a bit around here, even though you are under no obligation to. After all, we have been keeping you here against your will, more or less." Integra tilted her head to the side. "Due to the sensitive nature of what we do here, we don't invite in a lot of help, so you should know it is appreciated. However, we believe that there is now very little danger from you leaving."

"You want me to go?" Aileen asked, her lips trembling just slightly. Integra peered at her from those rounded glasses of hers, expression firm but not unkind.

"I'm simply saying that if you wish to go, you are free to do so. I think you have a good understanding of the situation. You wouldn't tell anyone about what we do here, now would you?" she asked, pulling out one of her cigars.

"No. It's not my secret to share," Aileen said with a shake of her head. "And most people wouldn't believe me anyhow," she added. "If anyone did believe me, I'd feel sorry for them more than anything."

"Why would you say that?" Integra asked, perhaps a little sharply. Her eyes focused intently on the younger woman.

"I'll try to explain, though I'm not sure if it'll make sense once it's not in my head anymore," said Aileen, nibbling on her bottom lip. She took a deep breath and tried to put what was in her mind into words. "Most people have enough to worry about already without having to deal with all this as well," she said, gesturing to indicate the whole of Hellsing, what it does, and what it stands for. "It might be hard to predict how each individual would take the news that vampires exist, and some of those ways might be dangerous. Since I didn't know vampires were real before coming here, I'm assuming you mean for it to stay that way. This is your job, isn't it? So you'd know better than some random girl."

"You're quite right about all of it," Integra said, eyebrows raising just a fraction. So far Aileen hadn't been terribly impressive, but the girl's mind seemed sound enough. She lacked any formal training for anything, but she seemed to have good intuition. What was more important was that her heart seemed to be in the right place.

"Even though I'm not likely to tell anyone on purpose, it might just be better if I stayed here," Aileen said. "If it's not too much trouble," she added hastily, not wanting to push her way into being here.

"You don't want to return to your country?" Integra asked.

"It's not that I don't want to return," said Aileen carefully. "I just think that people might notice if I acted differently. I don't think I can really ignore or forget what happened here." She sighs. "Besides, I spent a lot of time feeling really distant from everyone around me, and I didn't know why until now. It would be too strange to go back when I feel so differently."

"While I don't entirely understand, what you say makes a certain amount of sense," Integra admitted. She had always been very much aware of herself, but she also had never had a ghost living in her head.

"Very well, if that is your wish, then you are welcome to stay here. I will make arrangements to have you able to work here legally. I'll pay you for your time when that is all settled."

"Thank you," Aileen said, inclining her head respectfully.

When Seras heard the news, she sought out Aileen. She wasn't close to the girl, but what she saw of her made her inclined to view her in a positive light. Even though Seras had willingly been trained as a police officer she felt closer to Aileen in some ways than she did Integra or Alucard. It wasn't all that long ago that she was human and completely oblivious to the existence of Hellsing and vampires. Now she was one. Perhaps, with someone else so young and flawed around it would be easier to keep in touch with the humanity she so feared losing. Integra was a good woman, but she was so severe.

"I hear you are going to be staying with us," she said brightly to Aileen.

"Yes; Sir Hellsing said I could," Aileen returned with a smile.

"It will be nice to have someone normal around here," Seras went on to say. "Everyone else here has been at this for such a long time."

"But aren't you the same as Alucard? I mean, you are a vampire too, right?" asked Aileen. It was the only thing she could think of that explained the red eyes the blonde had: eyes that were so much like the male vampire's, even though the face was completely different.

"Well, yes, but I haven't been one for very long," she admitted. "I guess in some ways I still think of myself as human." She rubbed the back of her neck sheepishly. She already knew that both her master and Integra found this way of thinking dissatisfactory. From Alucard she could understand this, but she would have thought Integra would understand better since she was still human.

"If you haven't been one for long, it makes sense," Aileen responded, nodding her head. "I mean, you look like you've been human for only twenty something years, so you have a lot of catching up to do before you've been a vampire as long as you've been human." She paused for a moment. "I mean, it takes most people at least a decade to realize they've grown up. I keep telling myself I should feel like an adult any year now," she added with a rueful smile.

"I'm actually glad to hear you say that," murmured Seras. Aileen seemed so very kind. But it made Seras wonder how long she could really stay that way. As devoted as she was to her Master, even Seras wouldn't call Alucard a kind and gentle person. Really, the most gentle among them was probably Walter, and even he was a fierce fighter. What place did this Canadian really have here? On the other hand, now that she was here, could she really fit in anywhere else?

"You don't really like being a vampire, do you?" It was barely a question; it was more a statement.

"Yes, I mean...it's not so bad. There's just a lot to get used to," Seras said, fumbling with her words a bit. "But it was either this or die," she added, seeing that Aileen looked a bit concerned. In a few sentences she described what had happened to her in Cheddar. Aileen remembered the name from when she was researching the graves, and she frowned.

"I read about that in the newspaper," she said quietly. "It must have been rather terrifying for you." She smiled uncertainly. "At least you survived, even if it wasn't quite the way you would have liked." She was relieved to see that Seras didn't take offense to this. Still, it made her more curious about Alucard. From what the ghost had said, he was an angry man who went through a lot. But even so many centuries later he was able to show a form of kindness.

"It was scary. I was trained for normal police work, not dealing with supernatural threats. A lot of good men were lost that day," Seras said with a bit of sadness. She hadn't really talked much about that day. There wasn't really anyone at Hellsing that had time to listen to her lamentations. She was about to say more, but she heard a summons in her head. "I've got to go; Master wants me."

"Does he make you call him that?" Aileen asked as the female vampire turned to go. Seras stopped for a moment and gave Aileen a long look.

"No," she said thoughtfully. "It just sort of comes naturally."


	12. The Recruits

**(Disclaimer: I own nothing of the original Hellsing. I also wonder how many ways I can find to say this.)**

_It's strange. For most of my life I was someplace normal, someplace relatively safe. But I didn't really feel like I belonged. No, that's not right. It wasn't that anyone made me feel like I didn't fit, but I was just so disconnected from everyone. I feel like I've woken up from a long dream and reality is a very strange place. But it feels right._

Aileen was greatly revitalized. For most of her life she was a meek person, sitting in the background and watching most people and events from a distance. Now that she had a specific purpose, she felt a great deal of energy. Walter noticed the difference and smiled to himself as she bustled about, trying to do the most she could without stepping on his toes. She showed him the utmost respect, though she had more of a frank exuberance than a polished British manner. But, considering she wasn't British at all, he could excuse this.

It didn't matter to her that the paperwork was still processing. Aileen wasn't about to just sit around and do nothing. She had become quite attached to the place, and the people in it. Seras was outright friendly with her and seemed to appreciate how different she was. Integra was cold and commanding, but so very much like her name: she had a lot of integrity. Aileen was surprised to discover that Sir Hellsing wasn't much older than herself; still in her early twenties. And Walter seemed like a father figure to everyone there; except Alucard, of course.

Alucard was the one enigma in the whole group. Aileen could understand everyone else so far. But he seemed so strange still. It wasn't merely that he was a vampire, since Seras was one also. Rather it because the version of him that she saw from the ghost's memory and the man she physically met seemed so different. How did he come from being one to the other? What would such a long life do to anyone really? As curious as she was, Aileen didn't think that he was the sort of person she could strike up a casual conversation with.

Still, when she did see him, she had trouble keeping her eyes off him, though she tried to not stare openly. The fascination was noted by those around her, but since she didn't do anything besides just watch him, no one spoke up about the matter. It didn't seem too unreasonable; he was a rather impressive figure. And she did carry around his wife in her head for some time. Still, it was a little worrisome. Seras was his fledgling, so it made a lot of sense that she practically lit up whenever she saw him. It was less expected of Aileen, though she didn't light up exactly.

A little while later Aileen found herself quite busy with Walter, setting up some rooms to be fresh and ready for new occupants. She had shown up so soon after the attack of the Valentine Brothers that her mystery had quite set back the operations of Hellsing. With so many men gone, they had to be replaced. So the rooms were cleaned out to be made for the next batch of hearty men that had signed up to serve the Hellsing organization. While she was waiting for the men to arrive in England, Integra seemed a lot shorter with everyone than usual, so Aileen gave her a lot of space.

To her intense relief, Aileen was finished helping Walter with the rooms by the time they were needed. She suspected they wouldn't be as neat once the troops got into them, but presentation was very important to Sir Hellsing. She stationed herself outside of the room they were gathering in so she could be ready to take them to their rooms. From inside she heard some laughing and then the sounds of a man yelling in pain. She winced, but it wasn't her place to investigate; she knew Seras was more than capable of taking care of things, and Integra was inside also.

A little while later a man came out, his face bloody and showing signs of injury. Still, he didn't look terribly upset. He seemed almost startled to see Aileen standing there, and he assessed her briefly.

"I suppose you're going to tell me you're a vampire too, hn?" he asked, his French accent making Aileen smile in return.

"Oh, no sir; I just work here," she said, bobbing her head once. "I can show you to your room if you like."

"That sounds like a good idea," the man said with a faint leer. Aileen seemed to take no notice of it, so he assumed she was either oblivious or just very professional. Considering what he had seen of the leader of Hellsing so far, he figured it was safer to believe the latter for now. On the other hand, Seras didn't seem quite as professional; but she did have the upper hand, being a vampire and all.

The two of them were silent as they went to the section of the manor that housed the troops. Aileen didn't even look behind her since she could hear the footsteps of the man as he followed her. Finally she stopped in front of the first room.

"These are the rooms. I suppose you'll be able to sort it out amongst yourselves who sleeps where," Aileen said politely.

"Since I am the Captain, it doesn't really matter what everyone else wants; it just falls to me to get the room I want," was the response, the accent bringing another little smile to Aileen's face.

"You don't look much like a military man, other than the uniform," she said, glad Integra wasn't there to hear her say that. "You look more like a freelance adventurer, like Indiana Jones or something. But more French." This got a laugh out of the mercenary captain.

"That's because we're mercenaries, ma chére," returned the man, lifting his hat briefly with a finger.

"Oh; I've never met a mercenary before. At least, not that I knew of," said Aileen, her eyes going wide. Perhaps it was a bit strange of her to find this noteworthy after meeting two vampires, but she had believed mercenaries existed before, so it was still quite a novelty, even if not of the same kind as meeting Alucard and Seras.

"Then it is my pleasure to be the first." The mercenary gave a little mock bow. "You can call me Captain Bernadotte." He paused. "Or just Captain and leave off the rest." He wasn't the most formal of men.

"You'll probably want that room then," Aileen said, gesturing towards a door at the far end. "It's the biggest." She smiled briefly. "If there isn't anything else, I have more work to do." In response to this, the Captain just waved her off, already reaching for a cigarette. This made Aileen just as happy to leave; she wasn't all that fond of smoking, though Integra had quite a habit of it also. And Aileen wasn't about to tell her employer to stop.

Over the next few days Aileen found she wavered in her opinion of the mercenary soldiers. They didn't seem to mean her any harm, but they were rather coarse. The she overheard them saying made her cheeks burn bright red. Seras also didn't like a lot of what they said, but she also had the advantage over Aileen. She was a vampire, and thus a lot stronger. And she was trained to fight, so there were at least some similarities between her and the mercenaries. Aileen was just a household servant and she lacked the stoic Britishness of Walter. But she made sure that she was always polite to the men and made efforts to ensure that everything was taken care of. However, she was careful to never end up alone with any of them. Not that she was terribly afraid; she didn't think Integra would condone one set people she paid interfering with the work of another, but she also realized that for the Hellsing Organization the mercenaries were far more valuable. She didn't want there to be any internal issues; fighting vampires was a hard enough task as it was without infighting. Not that Aileen would do much fighting of any kind; especially not against trained mercenaries.

Despite the crudity in manners of him and his men, the Captain was always kind to Aileen. He was much more likely to tease and banter with Seras. While the vampire woman often complained about this she seemed to like the Captain in her own way. Sometimes it made her seem more human; but whenever Aileen saw her in action, this notion was dispelled. Alucard typically remained aloof from the mercenaries in general, though sometimes he spoke to the Captain directly.

Eventually everyone settled into a routine. The men, while trained in weaponry and tactics, had never fought vampires before, so they were being taught the specifics of such fights mostly from Seras. In the air there was a tense feeling of anticipation. The question on many minds was whether or not these mercenaries would be ready to fight against vampires. Would they be the defense that the Hellsing manor needed? Aileen wasn't the only one to hope so, though she was likely the only one who wouldn't be able to defend her at all. Sometimes this worried her, but she had no particular desire to partake in violence.

This seemed to happen just in time. The FREAK vampires seemed to be increasing in number, and thus ghoul sightings were becoming more frequent. If hiring mercenaries had made Integra cranky, this made her almost unbearable. Perhaps Alucard's sheer joy in all the violence grated on her nerves as much as the loss of innocent life, though with her it was hard to tell. Aileen found herself taking more and more of Walter's more mundane duties upon her. He started taking a hand in the training and organizing of troops. At first Aileen was surprised at how agile and deadly the old butler was, but in light of the nature of the Hellsing organization, the surprise didn't last long. Still, it made her more in awe of the man, who seemed to be the only other normal person in the place.

At one point Aileen found herself on blood delivery for the resident vampires. With Seras this seemed to be little problem. The ex police officer was fairly easy to deal with; she was friendly and close to Aileen's age. This helped a bit. That and it was known she was rather reluctant to drink blood; delivering it was more of a formality than anything else, so Aileen didn't mind. However, moving onto Alucard afterwards did give her a bit of pause. Violence and blood had been his choice for quite a long time and it wasn't born from duties to serve and protect as it was in Seras. Though, perhaps at one time, this had been true of him as well.

Aileen moved on from Seras' room after some light chit chat and headed towards Alucard's room. It was large and dark, almost cavernous in nature. Apart from a chair, a small table, and a coffin it was bereft of furnishings and decor. It truly was a dungeon room, and this sent shivers up her spine.

"Why can't someone who goes through walls go get the blood instead of having it delivered?" she wondered out loud in a rare moment of petulance.

"Drinking blood is addicting," came Alucard's voice from the darkness as he faded into view. "Do you really think it is wise to send addicts into the place where the object of their addiction is stored?" Aileen saw him sitting in the chair that was empty moments ago. She blushed as she thought her murmurings were for her ears alone.

"I suppose not," she admitted sheepishly. Tentatively she moved forward to bring the blood she carried for him. He smiled wolfishly.

"And why would anyone want a cheap beer when they could have the finest of wines?" he said, his words seeming cryptic to Aileen. Her brows furrowed as she tried to puzzle out what that statement meant. When it hit her, her blush deepened considerably. Alucard simply chuckled softly at this reaction. He watched her quietly from behind those orange glasses of his as she continued to approach despite her understanding of his words.

"I don't drink, so I wouldn't know," Aileen said, simply because she didn't feel it was polite to ignore the question, though she suspected it was rhetorical in nature. Finally standing before him, she handed him the bag, which he put aside on the table for now. It seemed like such an uninteresting thing compared to a live source, and he had said as much. Still, he was impressed that she didn't turn and make a hasty retreat the moment the blood bag left her hands.

(**A/N:** I've put in a few things here that were requested. But I've noticed a lot of people find my chapters rather short. I'd like to apologize for this, but the reason for their length is often a matter of impatience, guilt, or a combination of both. If my writing is on fire, I'm impatient to share what I've written. If I'm struggling with writer's block and haven't posted for a while, I feel guilty, so as soon as I feel I have enough to share, I will post it. That's just how my mind works, so bear with me on this one. I hope you all continue to enjoy the show, as the saying goes.)


	13. The Girl

(**Disclaime**r: Hellsing is not mine.)

(**AN**: I've become a review addict, so I might just have to say I won't post any more unless each recent chapter has a comment on it first. Just think about it folks. Pretty please!)

_"Everything I had and everything I was, belonged to him." These words echoed in my mind. I didn't call them up as far as I knew, but I was also certain it was the memories of the words and not a repeat of them. The ghost in my head was gone, but I could still remember her. I could remember her devotion. Perhaps it was my admiration for this that led me to make a choice._

"Do you want me to leave?" Aileen asked. As much as she had seen Alucard here and there around the manor, she didn't really know him. She knew what his long dead wife thought about him, but that was one person from centuries ago. Seras was obviously happy to see him, but she was his underling. Integra didn't speak about Alucard at all, and neither did Walter. As for the mercenaries, they had been here for less time than she had. So she didn't know if her presence there and being 'better' than bagged blood was an unwanted thing.

"You humans are so strange," said Alucard, his mouth turning up in a smile, his eyes hidden behind his signature glasses.

"But you were human too," Aileen protested.

"That was a very long time ago, as you saw yourself."

"That's true," agreed Aileen meekly, "but that doesn't mean it's not true." She paused, tilting her head to the side as she regarded the enigmatic vampire. "You didn't't answer the question though."

It took Aileen a moment to process what happened next. It seemed that one moment Alucard was sitting languidly in his throne like chair, and then he was standing right in front of her, looming over her. She gasped, and trembled, but she didn't back away. His face gave her no clue as to his intentions. Alucard himself wasn't entirely sure of his own intentions; in general people didn't ask him what he wanted. They were either busy trying to fight him, command him, or they were beneath him. So, when confronted with a question of what he wanted, he had to give pause. But it wasn't in his nature to show this, so he turned to the tactic of throwing off his opponent. It was strange that he could even consider this small and unobtrusive woman an opponent of any kind.

"The question is whether or not _you_ want to go." Alucard made sure there was a bit of growl in his voice, a hint of menace. He wanted to really see what the girl was made of. No one had been terribly impressed with her when she first 'arrived' at the manor. Yet, despite first impressions, she had possessed the fortitude to stay here. He wanted to determine whether it was bravery or foolishness. Perhaps it was both.

Aileen took a few steps back, though she didn't turn to flee. She looked up and down the form of the tall vampire. Her lips pressed against each other in an expression of resolve; she knew she wasn't a fighter, but she also had faith that whatever kept Alucard working for Hellsing would keep her moderately safe so long as she wasn't a threat to the organization in specific or England in general. It was this faith, more than any bravery, which kept her going.

"Is the blood from the bag really so terrible?" she asked meekly.

"Why? Are you offering something better?"

"I think I am," murmured Aileen. Alucard was silent for a few moments, his face still showing her nothing. Then he leaned forward so that his face was very close to hers.

"Then you'd better be certain," he said, his tone offering her a warning. Last time the action had been condoned by Integra herself. This situation was quite different. But he was not a man of restraint; he was a man of action. There truly was no precedent for this; it wasn't covered in the rules. People simply did not walk up to him and offer blood. There were no rules for such a thing happening.

Aileen nodded her head in assent. She expected Alucard to move in even closer, but instead he turned away and sat back down. For a moment she thought she might have offended him, but he smiled.

"Then say it," he said from his seat. "Approach me and give me your consent." His tone was imperious. To Integra he might have been a servant, but he was far greater than this mere slip of a woman. Yet, in an odd gesture of benevolence, he gave her a last chance to back out. Though, this was also self serving in a sense; there must not be any confusion on her offer. Integra must not have a reason to believe he tricked or coerced this situation.

To Alucard's mild surprise, she didn't take the opportunity to leave. Instead she made her way to where he sat, though she didn't say anything for a while. She furrowed her brows in thought. While she wasn't uncertain about where she was and what she was doing, she didn't really know how to say what she wanted to say. There was no known etiquette, as far as she knew, to offering a centuries old vampire her blood. This made her flustered, and the fact that Alucard was smiling made things worse.

"You have my permission to take my blood," she finally said; it was the best she could think of without making her want to cringe at her own words.

"Excellent," was Alucard's only verbal response. Reaching out a powerful arm, he drew her towards him. He could feel her tense slightly in his grasp but she didn't struggle. It was more of a subconscious reaction; the part of her that felt like prey in the presence of a predator. But deer typically didn't bow their heads before the jaws of wolves. With some pretense of consideration, Alucard was gentle as he moved the material away from her shoulder. As before, the goal wasn't complete exsanguination, so he didn't pick a vital area. Without Integra there watching, he took his time, which wasn't kindest to Aileen; but he didn't carve his name into history by being a kind man.

The smell of her virgin blood was so very enticing up close. And her offer saved him the trouble of warring with his baser instincts and the orders given by his master. In some ways service to the Hellsing family was a thankless task. It wasn't a matter of choice; he was bound. And certainly, even while he was trusted because of his bindings, he was still seen as a monster. People didn't thank monsters. His job was also his pay; he was able to indulge in his warrior's spirit against the undead threats to Queen and country. But that was it.

Finally he broke the skin and helped himself to Aileen's sweet blood. He also took a peek inside her actual mind. Last time, when he had been pulling on her blood, it had been his wife's memories that had come to him. He hadn't seen anything of Aileen except for the brief part where his wife found her while she was drowning. What he saw this time surprised him.

As a human, Alucard had been born in a hard time. The country that is now Romania was divided into smaller kingdoms that were as often at odds with each other as they were allied. Politics were unsteady and these kingdoms were the line of defense between Christianity and Islam. As a child he had been given away by his father to their enemies. He was a difficult captive and treated as such. His brother betrayed him. Later many of his political allies betrayed him also. People were inconstant, religions were inconstant, and countries were inconstant. And he was in a position to lash out with all his jaded anger against all these false people, some of whom were legitimately his enemies, and some of whom simply made the mistake of disagreeing with him.

But as he looked through Aileen's memories, he saw a completely different life. Modern day Canada was a safe place, and she was a girl of the middle class, something that almost didn't exist in Alucard's own time. No tragedies marked her early years. She was safe and comfortable. To her the world was a good place. The girl wasn't brave; she didn't have to be. There was nothing she needed to run from. The only big event to scare her was when she almost drowned, and that's when she had picked up her ghostly passenger, who had kept her soothed for most of her following years.

Alucard's frame of reference had always taught him the world, and life, was a cruel thing. No one in the Hellsing manor would have refuted this too strenuously. Integra's uncle had tried to kill her when she was still a child, and she had awoken Alucard to save her. Seras had lost both her parents to a violent death in her own home and was raised in the foster system. He had seen this when he made her like him. Walter had experienced the horrors of World War 2 when he was but a youth and had spent a lot of time fighting vampire since then. And mercenaries killed for money.

Aileen was different. Perhaps for the first time Alucard truly saw what it was that Hellsing was trying to protect. His concept of the 'innocent' people was tentative at best. He protected them because it was his master's wishes; he personally didn't care if they lived or died. The lesson he had learned in mortality is that life is cheap, and nothing had really taught him otherwise in all these centuries. This let him understand Seras a bit better too; she was also interested in protecting the innocent. It is why she became an officer. Deep down, he wondered if he too could have believed in such things if he was born in a different time, a different place. But he never would have said this to anyone.

The experience wasn't the same for Aileen either. Last time she had been communing with Alucard's wife; she hadn't even really noticed him at all because she was so caught up in her vision. But at the moment she was the only resident in her head, and so the experience was much more personal. There was an intimacy to the act of giving blood in such a way; it was the transference of her life force into another being. Because she had so little reason to distrust people so far, she didn't realize the immense amount of trust she was putting into the situation. While it had hurt at first, it wasn't entirely unpleasant afterwards, though it put her in more of a swoon rather than it being pleasurable per se. It felt more like she was floating between sleep and the waking world. She was only dimly aware of the cavernous room around them.


End file.
